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“Zzzzzzermatism” (Zermatism)

Zermatism is a bizarre mix of horribly misguided archeology, anthropology, biology, linguistics, and other stuff I surely missed. Knowledge of its existence is almost exclusive to those immersed in the skeptic movement, and even then, it’s mainly because it provides the ‘Z’ when completing an alphabet of nonsense.

It draws some parallels to the origin myths of various religions, the key difference being it wasn’t written long enough ago to become gospel. Zermatism originated entirely in the mind of Stanislav Szukalski, an extremely gifted and precocious Pole who won two Gold Medals at Krakow’s Fine Arts Academy, among many other accolades.

Szukalksi was highly creative and could have turned this into an excellent novel, although the best part had already appeared in “The Time Machine.” He authored “I Claim the World!,” a work longer than the Bible, Koran, and Rig Veda combined. The gist of the 39-volume monstrosity is all that people are descended from inhabitants of Noah’s Ark, which landed on Easter Island (thus shortening the kangaroos’ jaunt to Australia).

Furthermore, all languages derive from a single source, the Protong tongue. And all art is a variation of ideas developed by the ancient Easter Islanders. These creatures were almost flawless until being raped repeatedly by Yeti. The resulting descendants are dubbed Yetisynys. And their evil forefathers did not have to travel from the Himalayas to the South Pacific to consummate their cryptozoologic crimes. For these Morlocks, per Szukalksi’s explanation, included varieties in the Amazon, Europe, Japan, Mongolia, North America, and Siberia. They ravaged the Eloi wherever they showed up since, for all of the advanced species’ perfections, they never managed the ability to mass communicate or produce weapons. And how the Yeti developed worldwide when there had only been eight perfect specimens, all on Easter Island, is left unexplained.

The theory incorporates some elements of racism, the most blatant being the assertion that, of all Earth’s languages, the one closest to the ideal Protong is Szukalski’s native Polish.

Similiar to the Reptilian conspiracy theory, Zermatism asserts that Yetisynys can be discerned by their features. These include: Long upper lips; sharply angled, undercut noses; a squat, round physique; and most awesomely, a short ape tail. One need not pore over and memorize these anatomical traits. Szukalksi makes it clear the Sons of Yeti commit all the atrocities, so Nazis, Commies, and serial killers are the ones.

The teaching is similar to the anti-Semitic extremists who think Jews are descendants of Eve and Satan. However, Zermatism offers a reprieve to the cursed offspring, if they study arts, engineering, literature, medicine, and science. Szukalski explains, “To endure their mental hardships, they develop extraordinary patience and perfect imagination. Along with their animal vitality, this makes them capable of miraculous inventions.”

Zermatism was Szukalski’s ego personified, as it was extremely creative, iconoclastic, antagonistic to opposition, and featured mild apophenia. He threw in whatever he wanted, jammed it in to make it fit his preconceived idea, and subjected it to no peer review (though finding other Zermatists to look it over would have been an issue).

The work mixes unvarnished opinion, speculation of the both somewhat reasonable and utterly implausible varieties, and uses one science to prove another. For example, he examines a Greek vase featuring a Pan-like creature attacking a woman, then ties it all to the immaculate creatures of ancient Easter Island: “This is one of many paintings where the woman has the pictographic Tree with her with the Snake wound around it. This, being a Rebus for Polish “drzewo,” refers to her origin, for Protong “Drze Wo” means “Where Water,” hence she was one of the humans who came from the now flooded homeland. The Serpent, as always, represents the Great Flood.”

The volumes abound in this type of elastic thinking and represent perhaps the most extreme shoehorning I’ve come across. All art, culture, history, language, and migration is shaped to fit Szukalski’s narrative.

I could not ascertain any modern Zermatism movement, even among conspiracy theorists, cryptozoologists, or fans of Szukalski’s art. Ironically, the only ones I saw promoting his ideas were those in a countermovement, which was a type of messianic, apocalyptic Judeo-Catholic cult. They argued that the Yetinsynys are the true geniuses and are no longer flawless only due to mixing with the Easter Islanders. As I am a lowly humanoid, I lack the Yetisynys’ vast intelligence and was unable to deduce if this was serious or satirical.